Ocupado, Ocupado...

For all of those wondering, the amazing food continued...yeah, I installed my finger board on saturday to start my rigorous excercise regime. But that was not where I wanted to take this post, my weekend was ocupado ocupado. I was hoping to catchup on some sleep but like the question I posed to my friends, When do Bolivians sleep?

Friday was another great day at the workshop. If you "liked" the Etta Projects/ Proyectos page on facebook, there is a new update thanks to everyone's favorite intern including pictures and more specific information. While thursday ended my rigorous training in how to color, friday was my training day on the infinite amount of information the internet has for NGO's, especially the NGO's that target water source development. But to leave the topic of my work, my favorite find on friday was two books. The first pertained to my work, the second, well...No hay un Medico, written by a doctor, is a practical guide to health and medicine in rural areas where their is no doctor. I read like half the book on friday alone, genius. But the best and my most practical find was a giant picture book titled, Your First Thousand Words. All the little three year olds running around thought I brought out the book for them, so while my boss's daughter was counting all the niños I was asking questions about words to the same person giving her praise. So that's the story folks. I have a three year old spanish speakers interest in libros...friday night was going to be my first spanish lesson too. A friend of a friend is a spanish teacher and told me about a student of his that wished to learn english and in exchange for an hour or two hours of english speaking would gladly reciprocate in spanish. But when the time came closer, the guy ended up feeling ill and so rather than drive to Portachuelo, we merely went to the Karaoke bar. Not a two hour conversation, but still a fun time. The night being young I headed back to the office and found two of my housemates playing this great bolivian dice game. Wish I could remember how to say it, so I could try and spell it, it's just that every time someone said the name, it was so close to the word general in spanish that my mind latched onto the one thing it knew and not the thing it could learn. Several Cuba Libre's later, the cluck struck three and I realized I had to be up at nine.

6 hours later...
My friend Bismarck requested that I meet him at a gas station at the south of town. After hailing a motorcycle taxi, they're everywhere, we quickly sped off to meet my amigo. The plan was that we were going to go see a river southwest of Warnes at the place where his friend owns/operates a whole bunch of sand/gravel/large rock separators that suck everything out of the river. But first, and I really have no freakin' idea why, we drove all the way past the turnoff, which seemed to be around the halfway point between Montero and Santa Cruz, to santa cruz and back. We stopped once, which I thought was because the driver needed to ask for directions. (?) However, if you've ever 4x4'd across a flowing river you'll know the exhilaration I'm talking about. I normally like to take all new situations with a fairly stoic grin on my face, but this river had me smiling so freakin' quick and the machinery was quite interesting as well. But after what seemed like multiple trips to Santa Cruz and lunch and everything, they dropped me off at my house, and it was already time for bed.

Race Day
I attended the last race, in a series of races that happen all over bolivia, and it was pretty cool. Rally has really got to be the best kind of autoracing. Fast cars, horrible terrain, good company, and cerveza. I met many many people. We were at the main bbq where many of Bismarcks friends were and the log I happened to be sitting on created the perfect funnel for everyone joining the group, so me and the five other guys sitting on the log literally shook hands with everyone who walked up. I felt like a freakin' mafia boss on the day of my daughters wedding. Nice Nice people. afterwards, we went into Santa Cruz to get a close up look at all the race cars. Many many people turned out for this race, and when I was going into it I figured it was just a sunday thing to do, not an event marked on calendars many months beforehand. I hope you have had time to check out some of my pictuers on FB. But this was my busy busy weekend. So much so, that although I was sick saturday morning I didn't have time to be sick until monday, l(ike many people right?). So actually I write to you feeling rather sluggish from the little bit of revenge that waterborn assholes have assaulted my stomach with. But like all things in life, sleep a little more, drink gatorade and everything will turn out alright.